Survival Experts
by frombluetored
Summary: Clara was certain that things couldn't possibly get much worse when she and the Doctor ended up stranded on a deserted island. That was until she ran into one of her echoes. (And alien robots. Did she mention the alien robots? Why were there ALWAYS alien robots?)


**A/n: **I feel as if some sort of explanation is required for posting a 21,000 word oneshot. Basically, this was very fun to write, and it kind of took on a life of its own. It started as "hmm Clara and the Doctor stranded on a deserted island might kind of fun" to "yeah, but you know what would be even more fun? Throwing in robots and a scenario in which Clara meets and gets to know one of her echoes" and ta-da! This arguable monstrosity is born. It was enjoyable to write, but a lot of work and time too, so if you enjoy it feedback is always appreciated :)

* * *

It was quite simple, really.

They were doomed.

"It's deserted. Like—like _Lord of the Flies._ Like Survivor. Like that rubbish show Flight 29 Down that Artie used to watch. Like Cast Away! But we don't even have a volleyball named Wilson!"

The Doctor reached over and patted Clara's shoulder reassuringly. Or what was supposed to be reassuring; he patted with a little too much gusto and Clara felt herself sinking further down into the sand.

"There, there. Perhaps it'll be more like Gilligan's Island."

He stared down at her bare toes, digging anxiously into the hot sand. She had painted them blue with little stars, something that had made him ridiculously giddy only minutes ago when they were swimming in the surf, the TARDIS still tucked safely away on the island. His happiness had made their island adventure even better for Clara, but that was before the TARDIS decided to disappear. Clara buried her face in her arms.

"I honestly don't know if that would be better or worse than the alternatives." She mumbled.

She felt the Doctor knock his shoulder gently into hers.

"Cheer up! We aren't completely doomed! We've got…" his voice faded off, being replaced by the loud sound of the waves crashing against the shore. After a moment of what Clara assumed was pocket-searching, he continued. "One sonic screwdriver, a stuffed beaver—I forgot about Marge! Ha!, an ink cartridge for your printer—I meant to replace that, Angie's going to be cross with me when we never come back, fifty tan M&Ms from 1963, Amelia Earhart's last pair of aviator goggles, and four spare bowties. Just in case."

Clara lifted her head and turned to him, stuck between laughing and screaming. She exhaled heavily and glared at him.

"She's going to be cross with you _when we never come back_?" Clara punctuated each word with a punch to his shoulder. He yelped and slid back across the sand, out of her reach. "I can't never come back! Artie's got a chess match on Friday!"

She crawled over the sand between them and added another punch to his shoulder for added measure.

"Call your snogbox back!" She demanded. "We can't survive on fifty M&Ms and a stuffed animal!"

He frowned. "Now Clara, I really feel as if you're underestimating my treasures. These are fifty _tan_ M&Ms. Mars stopped producing tan in 1995. And Marge isn't just a stuffed animal, she's a stuffed _beaver_, and I'll have you know—"

Clara reached forward and the Doctor—possibly afraid of another strike—shut his eyes tightly. She snatched a couple of the M&Ms from his hand and promptly tossed them into her mouth, to his utter horror.

"How useful are these now?!" She demanded, grinding the candy up between her teeth angrily like she currently felt like doing to the Doctor's head.

He quickly shoved Marge down his shirt and crossed his arms over the lump protectively.

"Leave Marge alone! You've done enough damage!" He shrieked.

Clara rose up to her feet, trying to stretch her five feet to an imposing stature. She glowered down at the Doctor, her finger pointed at him accusingly.

"You said you wanted to treat me to a relaxing holiday! You said it was to help me get over getting torn into a thousand different pieces! _You said there'd be piña coladas_!"

He rose nervously to his feet after her, quickly stowing all his possessions back into his parachute pockets.

"There will be!" He said quickly and soothingly. She cocked an eyebrow and he wilted. "…As soon as I find a coconut and a pineapple…and some rum. And a cup. And some fresh water. "

Clara crossed her arms and stomped her foot, allowing herself to act like a petulant child. She surely felt like one, and she decided she was allowed a little hissy fit. After a month of migraines from the intellectual pressure of a thousand lives, the Doctor had promised to whisk her away to a safe island paradise for a month of relaxation. He'd promised tropical drinks, clear skies, and giant featherbeds with bright white translucent canopies. And what was she getting? Cast Away, with fewer resources.

She couldn't even look at him. She turned her gaze away stubbornly, her mouth pulling down into a frown, and she heard the Doctor let out a pained sigh.

"No, Clara, oh…come on…not that face." He pleaded. "Anything but that face. I hate the way your eyes get all shiny and sad."

She turned around so her back was to him. She knew they'd get out of this alive, because she trusted the Doctor with her life, with the world, with everything, but she had a feeling it wasn't going to be fun between now and the grand escape. Normally she was all for danger and excitement but, honestly, she'd been really excited about a simple holiday. She hadn't had one since her mother died, because her dad was too sad afterwards, and then she was busy with university, and then she was watching the Maitlands and helping them with their stress. All of her adventures with the Doctor were altogether too magnificent and terrifying to be thought of as holidays, and so this was a unique event for her. She'd been crossing down the days in the calendar and everything. And now her relaxing holiday was about to turn into some sort of bad, low-budget campy film with D list actors, probably one that would play on SyFy every other Saturday at eight.

He grasped her shoulders and began massaging them gently. She rolled her eyes but had to bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

"Come on, Clara, this'll be fun! It's still you and me and the beautiful sea. Just with more…improvisation!" He coaxed. After a few more moments, he let go of her shoulders and then circled in front of her. He caught her smile before she could cast it away. He pointed at her gleefully.

"There's that smile! My impossible girl is back." He said fondly.

"Shut up, I'm mad at you, and also your chin looks huge." She said, but she was smiling begrudgingly as she said it.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. At the moment, she hated that it made her feel all warm and tingly inside, as she was still feeling a little explosive and violent.

"We're going to have so much fun!" He exclaimed. "We just need to build a shelter, find a source of clean water and some reliable sustenance, and stay positive!"

Clara found his optimism jarring. She squinted against the glare of the sun on the ocean's surface, wondering just how melodramatic it would be to run screaming into the tide.

"I've got the first three if you can handle the last." She muttered flatly. The Doctor missed her sarcasm and clapped his hands together.

"Splendid! I'm glad you know about this wilderness survival stuff Clara, because frankly, I don't have a clue. This isn't even my planet! Haha! But, I'll tell you what, if there's one thing I'm good at it's being positive! On BAX-78 I was named Most Positive Competitor! I have the ribbon in my room." He grinned proudly.

Clara was finding the sea to be more and more appealing as he continued talking. She reached up and interrupted his ongoing rant about BAX-whatever by grasping his arm.

"Doctor?" She asked.

He looked down at her with a smile and affectionate eyes.

"Hmm?" He asked.

"I don't actually know much about surviving in the wilderness. I was just being sarcastic." She pointed out.

His smile melted off his face rather quickly. He rocked back and forth on his heels uneasily.

"Ah." He said.

Clara looked back at the shore and heaved a sigh.

"Yep." She said.

He screwed up his face in thought and then turned to look at her. He leaned his face close to hers, like he was about to tell her an important secret.

"So you mean you don't know how to build a shelter out of roughage from the jungle, fight off any animal predators that might be lurking in the shadows, purify water with what we have on our persons, and locate food?" He asked, quietly and anxiously.

She leaned her face in too, so close that she could feel his breath against her lips.

"Not in the slightest." She whispered back.

He looked up, his face twisting into one of actual concern.

"Ah." He repeated.

He fell heavily into the sand, a mess of limbs and a furrowed expression, and Clara sat down neatly beside him. She smoothed out her long skirt over her legs to try and shield her skin from as much sunburn as possible as the Doctor stared out into the sea with an expression of pure angst. After a while, he sighed again and reached back into his pocket. He held out his hand.

"M&M?" He offered, a little dejectedly. He stared down at his palm with a look quite comparable to the look of a depressed puppy.

Clara couldn't help but laugh. It started as a snort and grew into peals of giggling that she couldn't control. She gripped her stomach and doubled over, her familiar headache beginning to build as she continued laughing. She glanced at the Doctor, happy to see him beaming at her, and when she finally calmed down she took a couple from his open palm.

"Might as well, seeing as though this is the last food we'll probably ever taste again."

"Such a cheerful girl." The Doctor muttered jokingly. Clara stuck her tongue out at him.

After sharing all the M&Ms and watching the sun sink lower and lower in the sky, the two felt an eeriness fall over them.

"Doctor, why do you suppose the TARDIS brought us here?" Clara wondered outloud. As the sky darkened, the noises from the jungle got louder, strange insects and hopefully harmless animals chattering about. The Doctor fiddled with his bowtie.

"Oh, you know, I get lost sometimes." He said dismissively.

Clara gave him a sharp look. "You don't get lost. The TARDIS ignores your intended destination and takes you where she wants. So what's so special about a deserted island? And why would she want to leave us here?"

The Doctor gave her a mysterious and mischievous smile.

"Perhaps you and I have a date with destiny, Clara Oswald." He grinned.

She leaned back on her arms and stared up at the darkening sky.

"Already had a date with destiny. Ended up torn into a thousand pieces. Destiny and I are no longer on speaking terms."

The Doctor grimaced. "Fair enough. Her and I aren't too peachy either."

A silence fell over them, heavy and curious. Clara glanced a little nervously over at the Doctor.

"We'll be okay, right, Doctor?" She wondered.

"Yeah, totally." He answered quickly. "Absolutely wonderful. It'll be a blast."

* * *

The Doctor was a liar of the highest degree.

It was not wonderful and it was not fine.

Clara—determined to try and punish the Doctor a little longer for his careless piloting and potentially reckless snogbox—refused to sleep next to him that night. By the time they realized that the TARDIS wasn't coming back that night, it was too dark to venture into the forest for materials to make a shelter. The Doctor and Clara made a pathetic nest-like hole in the sand, and after an hour of digging, they had a pretty wide and relatively deep crater in the sand to crawl into.

"The hole serves us in many ways," the Doctor had explained, right after they finished digging. "It'll keep the breeze from freezing us as badly as it would on shore, as the sand will conduct our body heat better and keep it more contained, and we'll be hopefully out of sight from any predators that might wander out of the jungle—" he paused at the panicked look that graced Clara's face in the shadowy light "—not that that's likely to happen! Just in case! And plus, sand is rather comfy, don't you think?"

Clara looked down at her hands, raw and cracked from digging in the sand for so long. She looked back up at him.

"Not the biggest fan of sand as of late, but the rest seems sensible enough."

Clara tried to tell herself that she wasn't thirsty as they climbed into the crater. She knew even voicing the need out loud would only make it worse, as there was no water to be found tonight. She'd have to wait until morning and that was that. But still, the ache was terrifying, even if it was faint. It made her chest tight with panic. As the sky darkened completely, turning into a blanket of black satin with tiny pinholes of light, Clara found herself shaking.

The Doctor, from his own indention in the sand a few feet away, noticed.

"Come here." He whispered, his voice soft and caring. The concern in his voice was strong enough to help evoke the vision of his concerned expression, even if Clara couldn't really see it. Her eyes hadn't adjusted to the complete and total blackness, and she wished they'd dug deeper, because she felt terrifying exposed to whatever creatures were rustling about in the trees a couple hundred feet away.

"No. I'm lying on a deserted island and I think I've got sand in my knickers. I'm not talking to you." She said stubbornly. Her voice was smaller than she would have liked.

"You can shake the sand out." He suggested, obviously trying to be helpful. But that wasn't the thing Clara was really worried about. They both realized what it was when they heard a sudden snap from the jungle and Clara flinched violently.

He scooted closer. Clara glared and slid back.

"It's okay, they'd eat me first. More to eat. You're snack-sized." He cooed.

As much as she didn't want to be eaten by strange island creatures, she didn't want him to be eaten even more. He should have known by then that she valued his life over hers, seeing as though she opted to die a thousand times to keep him from dying. Plus, the idea of being alone on the island wasn't that appealing, even if she was irritated at him.

The idea of him dying made her a little less angry at him. She felt her stubborn grudge bending a bit underneath her fear and sudden worry for his wellbeing.

"Well, I don't want you to get eaten either." She pointed out, like her opinion mattered to the jungle creatures.

"Aw, thanks!" The Doctor said, flattered and pleased.

"Only because I don't want to be left to fend for myself." She lied.

Another sudden noise ended their sassy argument before it even began. Clara was shaking again.

"Let me hold you." The Doctor offered. He was speaking quieter now, and Clara had the sinking suspicion that it was to keep attention off them.

"You have to buy me dinner first, and seeing as though we're stuck on an island with no food, that's not likely to happen anytime soon." She snapped, her own voice lowered to a whisper as well.

But she was all talk and they both knew it. In her weeks after Trenzalore, she slept every night with the Doctor in her bed. He took to parking his TARDIS inside her closet, like a stowaway boyfriend, and curling up with her in her single bed each night. He even slept sometimes, a sight that Clara felt was somehow worth all the pain she'd endured. Truthfully—and she'd told him it too—he was her only protection against nightmares.

She didn't particularly want nightmares here. She had a feeling she was currently lying in the middle of one as it was. So even as she snapped at him, she felt her body drawing nearer to his as his moved closer too. They met in the middle of their crater, the Doctor's arm winding around her lower back and pulling her to him. He hugged her tightly for a moment, his lips pressing to her forehead.

"You're all right, my Clara." He whispered, all teasing gone. Clara gripped him almost as desperately as she had upon seeing him again in his timestream.

"I won't be if those creatures turn you into a meal and me into their midnight snack." She mumbled.

"Won't happen." He soothed. "You can hide underneath me, little one."

She smacked his shoulder. "Don't call me little one."

"Sorry." He mumbled. True to his word, he rolled over onto his back and opened his arm out, allowing her to burrow against his side. He wrapped his arm tightly around her, holding her so snugly that she felt for a moment that she actually _was_ safe, and only then did the tremors stop.

"I'll protect you too, _little one._" She mocked, but she knew he knew she was serious despite her snarky addition to her statement.

"Always do." He agreed.

It wasn't easy coming, but when she finally drifted off to sleep, it wasn't half as fitful as she expected it to be.

* * *

She woke up sweltering, pressed between the Doctor's heavy body and the hot, sun-cooked sand. True to his previous promise, their crater was far from the changing tides, so she hadn't drowned like she had previously worried about.

It was a testament to how stressed the Doctor was about all this that he slept in past her. It took a lot of trauma to cause the Doctor to sleep for long periods of time. By the time he woke up, Clara had stripped down to her swimsuit and was in the process of removing the glass from Amelia Earhart's aviator goggles.

The Doctor rubbed his head, causing sand to fall everywhere, and stared sleepily at her. He blinked a few times and then yawned.

"Wow, still dreaming. I must really be tired to still be asleep." He murmured.

Clara lifted her eyebrow and smirked at him.

"Do you frequently have dreams of me half-naked, then?" She challenged.

It took the Doctor a few more moments of looking at her before he realized that he was, in fact, awake. He gasped.

"Oi! No! I—well, okay, mayb—NOT! Never! How…no! Shut up!"

Clara watched his fit with a smile. She pointed at him and lifted her eyebrows knowingly.

"Caught you."

"Why are you so bare?" He demanded. He pointed up at the sky. "You're going to get burnt."

"Because it's hot as hell, probably literally." She explained.

After a moment of blankly staring, he shook his head and zoned in on what she was doing.

"Clara! You're defiling the last pair of aviator goggles Amelia Earhart ever wore!" He shrieked. He jumped to his feet and hurried over to her, his hands opening and closing frantically. Clara yanked the goggles out of his reach quickly.

"Sorry, we need to use her lenses because we're going to have to make a fire at some point." She said. The Doctor look suspended between sadness and pride.

"While I'm sad to see the goggles go, I'm impressed by your innovative thinking." He finally decided.

Clara smiled. "Well thank you. Here, you can dig this other one out. I've already broken two fingernails."

She tossed the goggles to him and then stood up. She walked over to the pile of his belongings, which she'd picked from his pockets while he was still sleeping, and sat to sort through them again.

She felt the Doctor's eyes on her.

"Hang on, where'd you get that stuff?"

"Your pockets."

He blushed. "You reached into my pockets?" He paused. "What'd you find?"

She gave him a coy look. "Plenty."

She gave him a few minutes to sputter and look horrified by her brashness. While he did that, she inspected the ink cartridge to figure out if it could be of any use. They could use the ink inside for something probably, but other than that she wasn't sure. Maybe sharpen some of the plastic to make some sort of shank? It'd be a pitiful, close-range weapon though. She supposed it could be of some use if they had to cut open some fish. Or they could use it as a tiny container for something. She was just thinking about the ways they could use Marge's stuffing when the Doctor stood up.

"I'm going to go forage." He declared. He started laughing almost immediately. "Oh, I've always wanted to say that! Wait here."

He scampered off.

"Opposed to what?" Clara yelled after him. She grumbled as he disappeared into the jungle. Like she had anywhere else to go.

She picked up his sonic and entertained herself with pointing it at the ink cartridge. She played with a few of the settings and, after a while, she found herself understanding why the Doctor was so fond of it. The noise it made was comforting to her, like the sound of her mother waking her up in the mornings for school or her Dad singing in the shower. She'd probably been hanging around with the Doctor too much.

Unfortunately for her, he chose the exact moment she chose the wrong button to come walking towards her, his arms laden with wood. She pressed a little, tiny red switch and then pressed the button, still aiming it at the ink cartridge, and the thing exploded without so much as a warning. Clara had just enough time to cover her eyes as the ink burst out.

"Clara! Don't touch my sonic!" The Doctor shrieked. The wood fell from his arms and he ran over, pulling the sonic from her arms and cradling it protectively. "It's sensitive."

"There are so many jokes to be made about that, but I think I got ink in my mouth, so let's pretend I said them." She spit into the sand.

She felt the Doctor's eyes on her as she hurried over to the shore, the sharp, unpleasantly tangy taste of the black ink still in her mouth.

"Clara—wait!" He yelled after her. "Don't put—"

Too late. Clara spit the water out immediately, her stomach churning. She fell down into the water on her knees and began coughing.

"Ew! Big mistake," she struggled out between gasps. She'd spent almost every holiday on beaches in Blackpool as a child and had already learned this lesson, and yet, here she was, repeating past stumbles.

She heard the splashes as the Doctor hurried to her. He settled a hand between her shoulder blades and rubbed her back.

"Salt water will only make you thirstier and your mouth taste worst." He reminded her.

Clara wiped the salt and sand off her face and sat up in the surf, turning to peer at the Doctor.

"I've got that now, thanks. Speaking of water…" She trailed off, a little nervously, and met the Doctor's eyes. "I don't know about Time Lords, but I'm not feeling well."

He rose up from the water and extended a hand for Clara. She grasped it gratefully and let him pull her up as well. They stood in the water for a moment, letting the tide crash into them over and over again, their mouths pulled down in identical frowns.

"The bad news is that I didn't see any sources of fresh water in the jungle." He finally admitted.

Clara nodded. "Right. And the good news?"

He scratched his face awkwardly.

"The good news was that I had just figured out a way to use some of the chemical properties in the ink as a filtration substance for the salt water."

Clara shut her eyes and let out a regretful sigh.

"Oh." She said.

"Yeah. But no matter! We'll carry on, like always. Blimey, I could really use a cup of tea."

She listened as he walked back up the beach, murmuring to himself (probably about ways to locate some tea leaves), and took a second to smack her forehead.

"Idiot!" She chided. "Just _had _to play with the sonic, didn't you?" She sighed again and shrugged after a moment. "Oh well."

When she joined the Doctor near their nest in the sand, he was sitting beside the pile of their items, thinking intently. He tossed her skirt and shirt at her, never breaking his eye contact with the items. She caught it easily.

"You're burning." He pointed out.

She shook the sand out and reluctantly pulled the clothing on. At least she'd dressed for the weather, with light colored clothing that covered her arms and legs. If only she'd grabbed her beach bag before they left the TARDIS. She had bottles of water and snacks in there, as well as a first aid kit (for the Doctor's sake), an umbrella, a book, and her phone (for the camera, but now there were obviously better uses for it). But of course the Doctor had grabbed her hand and yanked her out into the sun the minute they landed, like an overexcited child on Christmas morning, and had insisted that she could grab her bag after they finished testing the water. Unfortunately for them, the TARDIS disappeared shortly after they first stepped into the ocean, taking with her all their supplies.

Clara—now shielded from the sun—sat down beside the Doctor and joined in his staring party. They eyed the leftover remains of the ink cartridge, Madge the stuffed beaver, his four bowties, and their shoes for a long while.

"We need to make a desalination still, but we don't have any water-resistant material." He finally said, voicing the cause to his deep thinking.

Clara frowned and glanced down at her body. She really didn't want to give up her swimsuit, but she wasn't sure what the alternative was. She gave the Doctor a glance over (the insane man was still wearing his typical outfit, even in this weather).

"Aren't you wearing trunks?" She stared at his legs, trying to see if she could make out any lines from hidden swimsuit trunks underneath his trousers.

"Of course I'm wearing trunks! We're at the beach!" He told her. He looked back at their pile. "I wonder if it would be possible to melt the soles of our shoes and cool them into a thin, rubber sheet…but no, we'd need—"

Clara tuned him out as he continued rambling on about things that wouldn't work. She was still trying to figure out his clothing.

"Where _are_ the trunks?" She asked, interrupting his spiel.

The Doctor looked at her like she had asked a ridiculous question.

"You're looking at them." He said slowly, like he was explaining something obvious to a daft child. Clara scoffed. She leaned over and grabbed at his jacket.

"All I see is your usual, outdated—" she stopped, her fingers sliding off the fabric of his jacket. She leaned closer and stroked a hand down the front lapels incredulously. His jacket looked completely normal but felt exactly like a swimsuit. "Are you kidding me? You have a swimsuit replica of your frock coat?"

The Doctor beamed proudly.

"And the waistcoat! And my trousers! Go on, feel them!" He bragged.

Clara touched the fabric of each, shaking her head in disbelief as she did.

"I don't know whether to laugh or yell at you, honestly." She finally said. "You're literally covered head to toe in waterproof material!"

His practically-nonexistent eyebrows furrowed. "What?" He asked. He glanced down at Clara's hand, still resting on his thigh, and then his face lit up with understanding. "Oh! Oh! Yes, of course, how did I miss that?"

Clara shrugged, amused.

The Doctor had a bit of an emotional struggle when it came time to sacrifice his waistcoat. He clung to the slick material with stiff hands, his eyes wide and pleading, but Clara knew how to be ruthless when the situation demanded it. She snatched it from him with one strong tug and promptly began removing the buttons, just in case they could find a separate use for those parts. The Doctor used his sonic to make the material "more impermeable", but spent the rest of the time watching Clara with sad eyes as she constructed the desalination still following the Doctor's instructions.

"I'm so sad," he sighed.

They were using a hollowed out coconut shell as their condensation catcher. The makeshift distillery would take a while to provide them with any water, so Clara decided to tend to the distraught Time Lord while they were waiting. Sitting and staring at their creation wasn't going to make water appear any faster.

She sat down beside him and hugged him to her side.

"You still have your coat. And your cool bowtie." She said kindly, mostly because she hated seeing him sad, even if it was for a ridiculous reason.

He perked up at this. He sat up straighter and smiled at her.

"Cool? Did you say my bowtie is cool?"

She reached up and touched it lightly, her fingertips shaking a little (most likely from dehydration). She smiled up at him.

"The coolest." She promised.

He smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling, only to suddenly frown.

"Why are you being so nice?" He asked suspiciously. He caressed her forehead briefly, his fingers pleasantly cool. "Are you feverish?"

She smacked his hand away, even though what she really wanted to do was hold it to her face and revel in the coldness.

"I'm dehydrated and cross and exhausted and scared, but not feverish." She replied. After a moment baking underneath the island sun, she decided teasing the Doctor wasn't worth melting. She grabbed both his hands and brought them back up to her cheeks. He cradled her face in his hands, his smile returning. "Your hands are so cool." Clara explained.

He rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks. "But not the same cool as my bowties, right? And are you really scared?"

His worry was cute, but a little misguided. He shouldn't have been worried about her emotional state. He should have been worried about the fact that they were both probably going to starve to death.

"Terrified. But no matter, let's go explore and find some coconuts." She said. She rose (his hands leaving her face much to her disappointment) and helped him up.

* * *

The two spent all afternoon roaming around the jungle. Clara decided that she hated jungles more than any other land type. The Doctor had to use his sonic to explode a lot of thick, winding vines that made walking through the jungle relatively impossible. Because of this, it took them hours to even make it a few miles into the interior. They finally found a grove of coconut trees after many bug bites and falls later.

The two stopped in the middle of the spongy jungle floor, their eyes trailing up the impossibly tall tree where their only food source resided.

"Well I'm definitely not tall enough to reach those." Clara finally said, trying to lighten the pressure in her chest with a bit of humor. The Doctor chuckled and then turned to look at her. He scanned his eyes from the top of her head to her dirty, mud-caked sandals.

"How tall are you?" He asked with mock innocence.

Clara looked from him, to the tree, and then back to him. She caught on to what he was thinking almost immediately.

"You've got to be kidding me." She said with a humorless laugh.

He grinned mischievously. "I'm about six feet, those lowest coconuts are about twelve feet from the ground, so we'd be good to go if only I knew a way to add a couple feet to my height…" he trailed off suggestively.

Clara crossed her arms. "If you think I'm six feet tall you're very wrong."

The Doctor edged near her. Clara took a cautious step back.

"No, but on your tiptoes with your arms outstretched you might reach it." He said.

Clara frowned. "Doctor, I really don't want to stand on your shoulders. I trust you with my life…but I don't trust your balance with my life."

He placed his hands on his hips and stared impatiently at her.

"Are you hungry?"

Clara's eyes scanned the distance between the ground and the bottom cluster of coconuts. Her stomach also chose that very inopportune moment to growl. She sighed. She was getting shakier and shakier, and she knew she couldn't really say no. Plus, the coconut water in younger coconuts would provide some hydration while they waited for water.

"Fine. But don't look up my skirt, and if you drop me, I'm going to tell the TARDIS you called her a snogbox behind her back." Clara threatened.

Her threat seemed to work. After a bit of a struggle, she placed her feet carefully on his shoulders and slowly stood up a little, her hands gripping his hair tightly. He gripped her ankles firmly and rose steadily to his full height. Once he was standing straight, she let go of his hair and stood up fully herself. She had to shut her eyes and take a few deep breaths once she was all the way up, because she had never felt more liable to fall before in her entire life, not even when she was actually falling through his timestream.

"I can feel a phobia forming." She sang underneath her breath. The Doctor tightened his grip on her ankles.

"Okay, now throw the coconuts down!" He yelled up at her.

She looked up at the coconuts, just a little ways above her head, and began reaching for them. Prior to that, her arms had been extended straight out at her sides, attempting to add a little balance. When her fingertips grazed the bottom of the coconut closer to her, she cursed venomously underneath her breath, because she realized she was going to have to rise up on her tiptoes after all.

"I'm going to have to stand on my toes." She informed the Doctor.

His hands slid up her legs a little, so he was gripping her calves instead. That made her have a little more stability, but it would also cause his arms to pull uncomfortably when did rise up.

"You know, this wouldn't have been a problem with Amelia Pond. She was as tall as me." The Doctor groaned. He let out a surprised yelp when Clara lightly kneed the back of his head.

"There'll be none of that!"

He quickly backtracked. "But her nose was nowhere near as cute as yours, Clara, that's the truth."

Clara decided, right then and there, that she was going to punch his arm first thing when she was finally back on solid ground.

She couldn't believe that she was the same girl who had jumped into the Doctor's timestream as she slowly began rising onto her toes. She was so afraid that she began cursing underneath her breath, each word leading into another, her eyes trained on the coconut. She would honestly had rather been fighting Cybermen than doing what she was doing.

When she grabbed the first coconut and pulled, she teetered back dangerously.

"Clara! Careful!" The Doctor chided, his hands traveling further up to grip her knees and steady her. She stared at the distant ground in shock, breathing heavily, her hands gripping the solitary coconut.

"That was close." She acknowledged weakly. The Doctor briefly rubbed his thumb back and forth, which was about as much as he could do for comfort while she was currently perched like a ballerina on his shoulders. She let the coconut drop and went back to her mission. The next two went a little better, and after ten minutes, she found that she was a lot more comfortable. She risked leaning to her right and left to grab coconuts on other branches, somehow trusting now that the Doctor wouldn't let her fall. And she was right, because no matter how often she swayed and stumbled, his hands always readjusted and redirected her. By the time he could no longer support them both, she'd thrown down ten coconuts (some younger and some older), and no longer had a fear of the tree tops.

Once she was back on the ground, they both fell into an exhausted heap. Clara massaged her sore legs while the Doctor stretched his.

"I don't know if I can walk back. You're a lot heavier than you look." The Doctor groaned. He began rotating his head, obviously trying to ease some of the pain in his shoulders from where Clara was perched. She figured his neck probably hurt too though, seeing as though near the end when she was making particularly risky retrievals she might have possibly gripped his head with her legs for added stability. She reached over and patted his head.

"Sorry."

He grinned then and looked at her like he'd just noticed she was there. He gathered her into his arms like he hadn't seen her in weeks and kissed her forehead.

"That was brilliant! Have you ever considered being a trapeze artist?" He asked.

She leaned forward painfully and pulled one of the smaller coconuts to them. After all that, she was about ready to drink puddle water, and so the idea of coconut water was understandably appealing. She rotated it in her palms and examined it as she replied.

"Never. But we could do a great circus act together, Doctor. You were steady as a rock." She looked up at him after that. "Speaking of rocks, let's find some big, sharp ones so we can drink some of the water in here."

The two traveled around the immediate area looking for something to use as a tool. The Doctor finally found a rock with a pointed edge, and Clara watched in amazement as he expertly sliced and removed the husk. After that, he cracked it open with the rock into two neat pieces, only spilling a little of the small amount of liquid inside.

"Okay, you've definitely done that before." Clara commented as she took her half from his hand.

He grinned smugly. "Who do you think taught Tom Hanks how to do it?"

Clara rolled her eyes and then gave the coconut her undivided attention. She had thought drinking something would make her less thirsty, but unfortunately for her, it only made her want more. The two of them worked their way through two other younger coconuts before they began to feel better. They cracked open two of the older ones too and took turns scraping the meat away. Clara had always liked coconut flakes, but for some reason (most likely because she was ravished), it tasted even better on the moist jungle floor. Even the Doctor, as picky as he was, seemed to have no qualms with the meal.

After eating and rehydrating, the two gathered the coconuts up. Clara removed her long skirt and tied each end together, making it into a makeshift shoulder sling bag. They settled the coconuts into it and leaned against each other the entire walk back, each sore in different places but both exhausted. When they finally collapsed back in their little crater, it was getting dark again, which meant no chance of constructing a new shelter or building a fire.

They built a separate crater for their coconuts and Clara pulled her skirt back on, to protect her from the chilling breeze. There was no argument tonight; they were both exhausted and uneasy. Clara curled up in his arms before he even opened them for her.

"When will the TARDIS be back, do you think?" She asked him.

She didn't have to look up at him to know he was frowning.

"I honestly don't know. I don't know why she left like that. The HADS shouldn't have activated. There's no threat here." He murmured.

"Not one that we know of, anyway." Clara amended.

They shared a look in the darkening light.

* * *

By day four, Clara decided that they were probably never going to be rescued.

Dehydration and sunburn had severely dampened her optimism. They were surviving, and they probably would continue to do so for a while, but Clara was homesick. She missed her life, her charges, her bed, her life.

The only good thing was that it gave her and the Doctor plenty of time together. They had nothing to do except gather food and talk to each other. They spent two days on a rather impressive fort, but once that was built, they were back to their typical daily obstacles.

Clara knew that she knew more about the Doctor than anyone ever had. She knew his name, all the things he'd seen, all the things he'd done. She'd come across every single one of his previous companions. All of that, ideally, gave them so much to talk about, but prior to being stranded they hadn't brought much of it up. Clara was too afraid to breach potentially painful subjects, and the Doctor didn't like to make her think about her past lives. They were like dark, faded memories to her, barely there most of the time. She could sometimes remember things from them, like flashes from old films she saw as a child. She'd close her eyes sometimes and she'd remember the smell of leather shoes, the sharp impact of someone's hand on her cheek, the searing heat from a too-close fire, a field of poppies, a basin full of soapy and muddy water, a child's hand in hers, a sword covered in blood, a basket full of computer wires, a particularly aching smile. But she could put no backstory to any of these images, and honestly, she preferred it that way. It was odd (sometimes overwhelmingly so) to think about the fact that there were thousands versions of her getting into all sorts of mischief across time and space, and she couldn't even remember it. She must have been married at least a dozen times, had children, done all of those things she hadn't yet done as herself, but it was lost to her. The only time any of it made any sense was in her nightmares, but she didn't like to think about those either, and she and the Doctor didn't talk about them. He just held her at night and fought them in that silent, Doctor kind of way.

So it was different for them when, on the fifth day, Clara asked him about his parents.

They were inside their hut, hiding underneath the straw roof from the searing sun. It was far too hot to be sitting together, and yet they were. Clara grew needier and needier as each hour passed, although she'd never admit it to the Doctor. She prided herself in her independence, but as their situation grew more and more dire, all she wanted was the Doctor's hand in hers. She knew how to walk in the dark alone, but that didn't mean she had to.

The Doctor looked down at her, his hand stilling in her hair. She glanced up at him patiently, curiously, her eyes locked on his. His face shifted many times, going from surprise to pain to anger to sadness. Clara thought about lifting her head from his lap and sitting up, but she thought that perhaps her presence would make him feel more secure.

He talked and she listened. It was a simple thing, but simple things tended to mean the most. Soon, they were sharing stories to fill the time, stories that happened or could of happened or they wanted to happen or almost happened.

On day ten, with cracked lips and tired eyes, Clara asked another question.

"What happens if we're stuck out here forever?" She wondered. But that wasn't what she was really asking. Her real concern was buried far beneath that question, and it was going to take some digging for the Doctor to reach it.

He waved the question off.

"Oh, that won't happen. The TARDIS will come back. I'm sure of it." He replied.

Clara gave him a pointed look, the kind she gave Angie and Artie whenever she knew they were lying to her. He didn't even last half as long as they did underneath it before he was breaking.

"Okay, there might be a slight chance we're doomed." He agreed. "I guess we just…live. As best we can."

Clara nodded. She fiddled nervously with her hands and looked down at her lap, her next question the hardest. Back on Earth, ten days felt like nothing. But here, it was enough to completely break her of hope. Ten days was an impossibly long time when you were surviving on the absolute bare minimum of water daily, a diet that consisted solely of coconut and figs, and around four hours of sleep a night. Not to mention the emotional implications. Clara saw Artie's tear-streaked face behind her eyelids each night. He'd been so excited for his chess match, and she wasn't going to be there. She probably wasn't going to be there ever again. It was all this physical and emotional strain that led to her examining their likely futures, and she didn't like what she saw.

The Doctor stroked her cheek, his eyes worried.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

She glanced back up at him.

"Nothing. It's just..." she stopped and swallowed, her throat suddenly too dry to speak. The Doctor watched her curiously. "When I die. Will you be all alone?"

He retreated back into himself so abruptly that it was almost like he was never there at all. He leaned back from her like she'd hit him, his eyes hardening and his face going blank.

"That won't happen." He said, his voice hard.

Clara knew she should have argued, because it was going to happen. Her lifespan was a small fraction of his. She'd die and he'd just keep on regenerating, alone on an island in the middle of the sea. A mad man without his box or his impossible girl.

"That scares me more than anything else." She whispered, a little later.

He was still keeping a distance from her, like she'd betrayed his trust somehow, but he turned to look at her.

"What?" He wondered. "The idea of dying does?"

She noticed that he said _the idea of_ versus simply saying _dying_, like he was still convinced it wasn't something that was going to happen to her. She met his eyes.

"No. The idea of you being out here all alone." She replied.

It must have scared him too, because for the first time Clara had ever witnessed, the Doctor had a nightmare that night. His cry woke her up, and at first she thought they were being attacked, but then she noticed his quivering body beside hers. She shook him awake after stroking his hair didn't help him any, and when he shot up and peered at her in the dark, he looked once more like he'd seen a ghost. He crushed her to his chest and clung to her for hours, and when she glanced at his face in the moonlight, she realized that he looked more terrified than she'd ever seen before.

Everyone had nightmares, and she realized this was one of his. The Doctor, absolutely alone, unable to escape death.

* * *

She began to have flashes of another time when she was trapped somewhere.

"I've done this before." She informed the Doctor on the fifteenth morning. "I mean, not been trapped on this island, I don't think. I've been stranded somewhere."

He handed her a coconut and watched as she drank, his eyes unreadable.

"Do you remember something?" He asked.

She stared unseeingly at the earth. "A bit. I remember music, Carmen, I think. I was lost and trapped."

He seemed desperate to change the subject. He went on a sudden rant about wind power and then bounded over to her and pressed a kiss to each of her sunburnt cheeks. The affection leaking from his kisses shifted her mind away from what she was remembering enough for him to carry the topic in a different direction, but sometimes she'd think about the brief panic she saw in his eyes, and she'd realize that he knew something about that life, something that was obviously painful enough that he didn't want her to remember anything of it.

* * *

In retrospect, she realized they probably should have inspected the entire island.

The problem was that it was huge. They would have had to camp to cover the entire thing, and that just wasn't possible. They were barely surviving how they were, with their distillery and decent shelter.

Clara woke up to the sound of marching. The sound was so foreign that she was alert almost immediately. She sat straight up, her heart picking up speed, and listened silently. The marching was loud and imposing. She didn't know much about armies, but it sounded like it was quite a lot of pairs of feet, and she could hear some sort of sharp rhythm, like metal hitting metal.

She leaned over the Doctor's sleeping form and gave his shoulders a firm shake. It took a few moments, but when his eyes opened, she quickly pressed her palm over his mouth to keep him from talking. His face constricted in confusion, but after he listened for a moment, he sat straight up in a panic too. They shared a terrified look.

"Maybe they won't see us." She breathed, as quietly as possible.

He shook his head. "They'll see us. Fight or flight?"

She looked at him in horror.

"You're asking me?!" She hissed.

He edged near the doorway and peeked out through the long leaves they'd hung as curtains. She wanted to join him, but she was scared stiff and couldn't get herself to move an inch.

He came back a moment later, his face paler.

"Bad. Lots." He informed her. "Not human."

She felt her heart stop. Only them. Only could they get stranded a_nd _come across aliens.

"_What do you mean not human?"_

"I mean they're robots." He replied. He risked a look back out the leaves. Clara resisted the urge to pull at her hair.

"Robots? _Robots_? On a deserted island? This has got to be a joke!" She gasped.

He turned back to look at her, his eyes hopeful.

"Maybe they're nice! Maybe they have a way to get us home!"

She grabbed onto his coat nervously, scared he'd run out towards them like an overexcited puppy.

"Or maybe they're hostile and they're the reason the TARDIS ran!" She argued quietly.

He looked at her, and she only had to take one look at the spark in his eye to know what he was about to do. She smacked her forehead, an annoying habit she'd picked up from the Time Lord himself.

"Only one way to find out." He sang.

She lowered her hand and sighed.

"Lead the way then." She murmured.

He grinned.

They exited the hut silently, Clara pressed to the Doctor's back as he pulled out his sonic. He was about to press it and aim it at the robots, to hopefully get more information, when Clara felt a hand grasp her shoulder. She opened her mouth, a scream forming, when a hand covered it almost immediately, like the person knew she was going to scream before she did.

A familiarly accented voice whispered a command.

"Run."

She didn't think of anything. She didn't stop to question who was behind her or why she should trust them. She just grabbed the Doctor's coat and pulled, hard, and then she was dragging him through the trees, away from the oncoming army. All she could see was a blur of green as they ran, and she kept glancing around her for whoever had told her to run, but she couldn't see anyone but her confused Doctor.

When the sound of the marching was all but gone, Clara leaned back against a tree, panting. The Doctor fell to the floor, his head between his knees as he gasped.

Clara heard a crunch that she couldn't place. It was familiar, but not like any sound she'd heard in the jungle. It took a moment, but she realized it was the sound biting into an apple made. And then she opened her eyes and found herself staring at a woman who made her skin crawl. It wasn't until she'd stared blankly for a few moments that she realized _why _she felt so uncomfortable.

"Doctor," Clara asked slowly, her voice choked with panic. She slowly dropped her eyes from the woman and glanced down at the Doctor, who still had his face tucked. "Doctor, that's me. That can't happen, can it? Doctor!"

The woman took another bite from the apple in her hand and stared at Clara oddly. Clara stared back with an expression that probably mirrored the person in front of her.

"Actually, I was here first, so I think technically you're me." The other woman said calmly. She let the apple fall to the floor and crossed over to Clara, her eyes alight with interest. Clara shrank back against the tree. She'd never once thought of what it would be like to suddenly be in a space with herself, but she was sure even if she had she'd never have guessed that it would be so…uncomfortable. She glanced down at the Doctor who was staring at the scene in front of him, his mouth hanging open. He looked even more confused than she was.

Clara looked back at the woman nearing her. When she reached out and touched Clara's cheek, Clara could only wonder if that's how other people felt when she touched them. The woman had her hands after all, her hands that felt a lot softer and gentler than she had thought they might. Clara felt her discomfort waning a little. This was _her_ after all.

Of course, the woman seemed to have reached that level of comfort a lot sooner. She poked Clara's nose and then pinched her cheek, like an over-zealous aunt might at Christmas.

"Wow, they weren't kidding about the flesh suits." She commented. She brushed her fingers over Clara's lips. "This detail is incredible. I can't even feel the metal underneath."

Clara reached up and grabbed the woman's hand. That certainly felt odd. Is this what being an identical twin would feel like, if you suddenly met a twin you didn't know you had? No, Clara thought this must be a lot stranger, because this woman _was_ her. She was a fragment of her buried in space and time, a fragment that was currently wearing atrocious khakis and a blue button down. Clara made a mental note to never wear those items, as it made her look a lot shorter and, frankly, like a ten year old girl on a camping trip.

"Hang on, _metal_? I'm not made of metal." She argued. Then she opened her mouth wide to prove it. The echo lifted her eyebrows and then leaned forward, staring quizzically into Clara's mouth.

"Oh, sorry dear, I think you've got a cavity." She commented. Then, after a moment, she began backing up slowly, her eyes widening as the reality of the situation hit her. "You're not a robot."

Clara glanced helplessly at the Doctor, who was still gaping at them.

"No, I'm not." Clara replied. She was a little disappointed to find that there was no understanding hidden in the other Clara's eyes. She knew (from her own brief recollections and the Doctor's memories) that her echoes didn't remember or know that they were echoes, but she figured that seeing her and the Doctor would trigger memories enough to bring that knowledge back. Apparently not, as the version of herself in front of her looked like she was about to pass out.

It happened before Clara could even blink. The woman was on the other side of the clearing one moment and flying toward her the next. Clara froze as she felt the blade press against her throat.

"No! Stop!" The Doctor cried, his voice torn and ragged with fear. Clara glanced past her other self's hostile eyes and looked at the Doctor's desperate ones.

"Who are you?" The woman growled.

Clara turned her attention back to the woman. She stared into her own eyes, surprised to find just how _cold_ they could look. And how sad and scared. She wondered if that's how she looked right now, too.

"Clara?" Clara supplied weakly.

The Doctor walked up beside them, his hands shaking.

"Lower your weapon." He ordered.

Clara could see the confusion in the woman's eyes. Her eyebrows lowered a little, her grip slackening slightly. Whatever she saw in Clara's eyes and heard in the Doctor's tone was enough to lessen her hostility.

"Okay then, Clara. Explain to me how they made you." She ordered next.

Clara shrugged her shoulders, glancing helplessly at the Doctor.

"We're stranded on this island. We didn't even know those robots were here." The Doctor supplied quickly. There was such a strong undercurrent of desperation in his voice that the woman lowered the weapon even more.

She had her attention on the Doctor now. She gestured at Clara with the sword, bringing it frighteningly close to her neck again.

"Then explain her." She demanded.

"She's…Clara." He said simply, like that was a grand answer. Clara wasn't impressed and neither was her echo. She turned back to Clara.

"Who are you?!" She yelled.

Clara never realized just how frightening she could look when she was angry. She was getting newfound sympathy for Angie and Artie. She stared at herself and willed her to understand. She took a chance, because this was her, and even if she wasn't perfect she knew she didn't have enough darkness inside to kill someone.

"Wait a moment." She said softly. "Think. Just think. You know who I am. You know you do."

The woman stared. Her eyes studied Clara, from her hairline to her feet, and as she looked she gnawed on her bottom lip. After a tense minute, she lowered the weapon completely and stumbled back a few steps.

"I don't know what I know, but I do know." She whispered. She reached up and gripped her head. "I'm you?"

Clara felt her shoulders relaxing. The Doctor ran a hand through his hair and exhaled heavily in relief.

"In a way." She answered. She took a cautious step forward. "Um…what's your name?"

She felt awkward about the entire ordeal, but she couldn't deny that this was another person just as it wasn't. This woman was born from her, but she had different memories, a different life. A different mom, a different love.

"Carla Oswind." She answered immediately.

Clara heard the Doctor sigh again, this time in annoyance.

"_That's_ going to get confusing." He murmured underneath his breath. "Can't we just call her Marie?"

Clara shot him a stern look and then immediately laughed, because Carla shot him an identical one at the same moment. They shared a confused smile.

The Doctor stepped between them, breaking up their eye contact.

"Right, so first thing's first: what were those robot-things?" He asked.

"Once we're back at base I'll explain." Carla promised. "It's only a little ways from here. Follow me."

The Doctor held back. Clara stared after Carla's retreating back and then met the Doctor's eyes. She shrugged and started following her.

"Clara!" The Doctor hissed. He ran up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder, stilling her progress. "How do we know she's an echo and not a trick?"

Clara looked back at Carla and then back to the Doctor.

"Dunno." A sudden thought occurred to her and she looked at him inquisitively. "Have you ever met yourself before?"

He looked like he was going to ignore her question and stick to his previous train of thought, but he sighed and gave her a tired nod.

"Yes, yes, a couple of times." He answered.

She shrugged. "Well then, you'll know what I'm talking about then when I say that I know she's me."

Clara turned and continued walking. The Doctor matched her pace this time, but he still didn't look too happy about it.

"First of all, regeneration is different. Secondly, this is why the TARDIS thinks you're conceited! You'll just follow yourself into a dense jungle without so much as doubting it!"

Carla glanced behind her from where she was a couple feet ahead. She smiled at them both and then gestured for them to keep following. Clara smiled back, much to the Doctor's annoyance. She looked back at him.

"You're just jealous. You think we'll become best friends and you'll be lonely." She pointed out.

The Doctor gasped, insulted. "Just you wait, Clara Oswald, by tonight you'll want to strangle that girl if she really is you! Everyone thinks they'd be best friends with themselves, but you'll see."

"Not everyone has as much self-hatred as you do, Doctor. Some people love themselves."

The Doctor scowled. "No one really loves themselves. We're all programmed to be our worst critics and our worst enemies."

Clara stopped walking and grabbed the Doctor's arm, stopping him as well.

"You didn't have any trouble trusting the other two versions of me you met. What's the problem now? We both know that she's an echo. Why do you think she'd be bad when she was born to save you?"

Clara realized the answer to her own question soon after she asked it. Because that's what the echoes were placed in his timestream to do, weren't they? To take his place, to die for him. The Doctor wasn't scared of Carla, he was scared for Clara. He didn't want her to have to see herself die (and maybe he also didn't want to have to see her die again, either).

"You think she's going to die." Clara voiced her realization out loud. The Doctor frowned deeply. He reached up and held her face in his hands.

"I think she's going to be murdered and I don't want my impossible girl to see it. I don't want you to have to carry around anymore weight than you already do."

His eyes were ancient. Clara set her hands over his.

"I'll be fine." She promised him. "Besides, we need her. That's why she's here, right?"

The Doctor looked so miserable that it made Clara's certainty wither. She tugged on his arm and got him to continue walking, but she couldn't get that look out of her mind. She made sure to hide her worry though, for the Doctor's sake.

When they finally caught up to Carla, she stopped walking and patted Clara on the arm.

"You're worried. Don't be worried." She said. She smiled and then continued walking, leaving Clara and the Doctor to exchange an odd look. Perhaps this was going to be stranger than she thought.

When Carla finally stopped walking, they were standing in front of a building that made their hut look pathetic. It was crafted with wood, long, thick vines, and huge leaves that resembled elephant ears and was suspended from the tree canopy. There were a couple of pallets in the space underneath the floating hut, like spaces for people to rest when keeping guard.

Carla gestured at it.

"It wasn't half as fun to make as it looks." She assured them.

Clara gaped at it. "You made this?"

Carla laughed. "Well, not alone!"

Still, Clara beamed at it with pride. It was shocking to her that she was splintered everywhere, achieving things she'd never even remember. So shocking that she just stared for a long while. The Doctor and Carla began talking about the robots, and when Clara tuned back in, she listened quietly. Carla explained that the robots were controlled by some sort of entity, an enemy without a physical form that was hovering over the island. She described it as some sort of "evil cloak" that kept all aircrafts from seeing the island at all. As far as she and her "assistants" could tell, the robots were an army and this island was a training base, only they weren't sure what for. They hadn't gotten very far in figuring out how to dismantle them, as the robots simply reassembled whenever you tried to take them down. In order for them to die, the entity controlling them had to die.

Clara felt a little sick to her stomach at Carla's last words during her spiel.

"We're calling the enemy the Great Intelligence. Well, I say we, but I was the one who picked the name. Catchy, right?"

The Doctor and Clara turned to glance at each other, but their attention was torn elsewhere when a delighted shriek echoed around them.

"Mummy!"

Clara felt her stomach drop. She watched as a barefooted, dark-haired child climbed down the rope ladder from the building. The young girl—perhaps around the age of six—ran straight into the open arms of Carla. _Oh, no._

"Ella! You're awake!"

Clara turned to the Doctor. She felt nauseated. It was silly, but she hadn't really considered the fact that her echoes might have people relying on them, people other than the Doctor. She hadn't considered that maybe when her echoes died, they were leaving daughters motherless. Even to this day she remembered with aching sadness what it felt like to wake up and know you'd never see your mother again, and she was having a hard time accepting that she was doing that to her own children, too.

"Okay, panicking a little now." She whispered. The Doctor reached for her hand and Clara didn't let go. Not when they climbed up into the building, not when they sat down around a driftwood table, not when Carla gave them two mugs of tea (to the Doctor's vehement delight). She was afraid to let go, afraid to be without him, because she was uneasy and she was starting to understand his previous reluctance.

"Bless you Carla, I could _kiss_ you!" The Doctor exclaimed after taking a cautious sip of his tea. Clara had been waiting for him to take the first sip, because even though it smelled like typical black tea, she was worried it was made from jungle worm guts or something. But the Doctor's reaction was one of utmost pleasure.

Clara raised her eyebrows at him and Carla laughed.

"Not in front of myself, Doctor." She stage whispered, sending a wink Clara's way. Clara smirked into her mug as she lifted it to her lips.

Carla sat down across from the two, her fingers still pressed to her temple. She stared intently at them.

"So is anyone going to explain what's going on, or do I have to throw a fit?"

"We could say the same thing." The Doctor pointed out. "What year is it?"

Clara set down her mug with a little more force than was strictly necessary. She looked at the Doctor with annoyance.

"You didn't even check what year it was when we landed? Are you just _trying_ to get us killed?" She demanded.

"No!" He said defensively. "I knew the general time period. This island is uninhabited for the bulk of modern day Earth's history, so I figured we were probably in that window. Although apparently not."

Clara rolled her eyes and the Doctor crossed his arms and began pouting.

"How about we trade answers for answers?" Carla suggested.

The Doctor and Clara shared a hesitant and uncertain look. The truth wasn't something easy to believe, so Clara could only hope that the woman would remember enough on her own to believe them.

"Okay." Clara said. Then she nodded towards the Doctor. "Go for it, Doctor."

He smiled politely at Carla and then began sliding his chair closer to Clara's. The chair scrapped loudly against the floor, causing Clara to wince and Carla to pinch the bridge of her nose. The Doctor's chair knocked into the side of Clara's as he leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Why do _I_ have to explain it?" He hissed.

Carla and Clara shared an amused look at his failure at being inconspicuous. Clara turned and impulsively kissed his cheek, her hand finding his knee underneath the table. She gave it a squeeze.

"Because you're my clever boy." She said.

He flushed, pleased, and seemed okay about being the story-teller from that point on. Clara was interested to hear him tell it in his own words, because even though she was very aware of what had happened, it was interesting to hear his take on it. He explained about the Great Intelligence and about how Clara had jumped into his time stream to save him and ended up torn into a thousand different versions of herself. After he finished, Clara supposed she didn't know why she'd worried that Carla wouldn't believe them. Of course she'd believe them. She had to have known in her heart that it was true, and judging by the tender way Clara sometimes saw her looking at the Doctor, she knew that she did. She figured it was probably for her echoes the way it was for her: they could vaguely remember enough to understand and feel things, but couldn't quite remember exact moments or information.

Carla took a while to digest what the Doctor had told her. She stared off into the room adjoining the sun room they were currently in, her eyes locked unseeingly on a pile of building blocks. The Doctor acted like he wanted to say something to her, but Clara nudged him and shook her head. She knew the woman just needed time to process what she'd been told. Clara couldn't imagine what it would be like to be told you were really just a fragment of someone else (even though, technically she'd already been told that before. She just told it to herself).

When Carla finally looking back at them, she smiled sadly at Clara.

"Of course, it all makes sense. The strange yearnings, the fragmented memories that don't make sense, the headaches. Sometimes I feel like I'm on autopilot, like when I first saw the Doctor in the jungle. I just ran towards him without knowing how, or why. Like it was what I was made to do." She glanced from the Doctor, back to Clara, that same smile still on her face. "We must really love him."

The "L" word hadn't been used before between Clara and the Doctor, even if she'd loved him for a very long time, and knew he loved her too (even if it was just in a friendship kind of way). She supposed she was in love with him too, but never found it something to be mentioned. It would be too complicated, her and him. A mess, even if a beautiful one. That one word made the Doctor gape at Carla for a moment, but Clara wasn't going to deny it.

"We do." She admitted. She knocked her shoulder playfully into the Doctor's. "He loves us too, a bit. But he'd rather die than say it." She teased.

The Doctor blushed. "A bit?! A _bit_? I jumped in right after you, you know!"

Carla cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned a little over the table, like she was sharing a secret with Clara.

"Someone's got it bad," she sang, purposely loud enough for the Doctor to hear. The two women began giggling, Clara a little hopefully and Carla a little sadly. Clara stopped laughing when she suddenly had to wonder if Carla realized yet that there was a good chance that she was going to die. Clara wondered if she'd choose not to, now that she was self-aware of her purpose.

Now that Carla had her answers, the Doctor was free to interrogate her about the island.

"I'm here with a special branch of the government, newly instated. We'd been living here for two years before we noticed anything strange. We initially came because the satellites had no readings of the island. It was as if it didn't exist from the air. You could take a boat out here easy, but something on the island repelled all technology and imaging. The robots were living dormant underneath the island. One hundred and three days ago, there was seismic activity, and then they just came pouring up out of the sand on the west side of the island." She said, adding more information onto what she'd told them prior.

"Do you know what they want?" He asked.

Carla frowned. "They seem to be preparing for something. They've been multiplying and learning, like an army preparing for battle. I suppose, knowing what I know now about the Great Intelligence, that it was your arrival that they were waiting for."

The words chilled Clara's heart. She reached for the Doctor's hand, lying face up beside his tea mug on the table, and grasped it tightly. The gravity of their situation was sinking into her. They were stuck here, the Doctor was most likely going to be attacked by hundreds of robots, and her echo was to play into this somehow. Clara was still holding onto a little hope that this was one of the echoes that was there for emotional saving or guidance more than physical, like her echo that had lived on Gallifrey was. It was idealistic of her, but she didn't care.

"So what kind of army do _we_ have?" Clara asked. The best way to combat panic was with preparation, she'd learnt that way back when she was young. "I'm hoping one that's well-stocked with weaponry and excellent shots."

Carla gave her the look Clara always gave to Artie when she had to tell him bad news.

"We aren't part of the military. The only ones here are scientists. We've been researching." Carla informed her. "But we do have something else."

_I would hope so_, Clara thought.

"Which is?" She pressed.

"If you follow me, I'll show you." Carla grinned.

She led them down many winding hallways until they reached a wooden door. None of the other doorways had actual doors (not even the bathroom, much to Clara's chagrin), so Clara figured whatever was behind this door was more important than anything else. It was that expectation that led to confusion when, upon entering the room, all she saw was a tiny black box sitting locked away in a glass cube.

"It's…-" Clara started.

"Tiny, I know." Carla finished. She grinned wickedly at them. "But just you wait until I tell you what it does."

The Doctor was practically skipping towards the box, his face split into two by a gleeful grin. He kneeled down in front of the table, so he was at eye level with the cube, and laughed delightedly.

"An intracellular data exciser! Blimey, it's like Christmas!"

"I've just been calling her Killer, but that works too." Carla shrugged. "That's the gist of it anyway."

The Doctor was practically fogging up the glass with his breath.

"This is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Did you design this?" He directed the question to Carla.

"With my sweat, blood, and tears. Pretty literally, actually." She affirmed.

He spared a glance toward Carla and grinned affectionately.

"Oh, I like you." He told her. He turned back to the cube. "And I like you, Killer, you cutie!" After a few moments he gestured back towards Clara casually, his eyes still on the box. "And of course you too, Clara." He added, like an afterthought. She scoffed.

Carla watched with amusement and Clara tried not to feel like the odd one out.

"So…what exactly does Killer do, then?" She asked. She shook her head after that, a sudden thought occurring to her. "And hang on—exactly what kind of researcher are you? The soufflé isn't the soufflé, the soufflés the recipe, yeah? Well, that recipe had no…intracellular data exciser information in it, I know that for a fact."

It didn't make much sense to her that her echo might be made up of parts that she didn't even have inside of her.

"Clara, don't be ridiculous, you've got computing stuff in your head." The Doctor argued distractedly. "And a natural tendency for cleverness. Mix those two together and voila! Science-y soufflé."

She looked at the back of his head uncertainly. Carla suddenly touched her arm, having neared Clara without her even noticing, and Clara jumped in surprise. Carla grinned at her and touched her cheek gently.

"Scared of yourself, are you?" She teased.

Clara made a show of sizing the other girl up. She eyed her up and down and then grinned confidently.

"No way." She declared. She idly adjusted a wayward piece of Carla's hair. "I could definitely take you."

Carla cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Sounds like a Friday night to me."

Clara smirked. "You have no idea."

Sudden, sharp clapping drew their attention to the Doctor, who was pouting slightly by his new favorite toy.

"Yes, all right, you're both very attractive and sassy."

The two girls looked back at each other.

"I don't think we should invite him." They said in unison, and then the Doctor's sulking was lost to them as they spent the next thirty seconds doubled over, laughing.

After their laughter ebbed, Carla explained "Killer" to Clara.

"The Great Intelligence, right now, is a sentient…thing over the island. He doesn't have a body, but he's manifested himself in all the robots, who are unfortunately near-indestructible. Theoretically, if we had a way to contain this Great Intelligence's mind, so that he couldn't exert control over anything else, we could keep the robots from doing whatever it is he has planned—which, of course, we now know is to kill the Doctor. Which we both want very much to not happen."

It dawned on Clara slowly. She thought about what the Doctor had called Killer and tried to put two and two together.

"So…the box. It homes in on the cells of the living mind, which are…what? Traveling around us through the air invisibly, from device to device, like…texts and picture messages? So the box finds them, destroys the data the Great Intelligence sends to the robots, and makes him just a living computer with no internet connection? Metaphorically speaking?"

Carla nodded.

"Precisely. But—"

Clara's grin was growing. She was suddenly on the same exact page as Carla, shoulder to shoulder, mind to mind. It was one of the most intimate experiences she'd ever had. She looked at the woman's eyes and knew without the slightest doubt what she was feeling and what she was going to say next.

"—the Great Intelligence is currently cloaking the island from any outside data or technology other than his own, as a protective measure, which is why satellite imaging and air crafts can't detect the island. And probably why the TARDIS disappeared so quickly—she was shoved out." Clara finished for her.

Carla's grin matched Clara's.

"So my "beautiful" creation is worthless until we find a way to turn off the cloaking." She summarized.

Clara laughed. "Brilliant!"

Only…

"So how do we shut it off?" She asked.

The Doctor's voice came from the corner, emotionless and quiet.

"Surely you know this one, Clara. We've been here before, you and I. What's the only thing that can hack a living mind?"

They both turned towards him slowly, Carla with confused and Clara with apprehension.

"Another living mind." She supplied slowly. "But that doesn't make any sense, what does that have to do with this?"

He stood up and walked over to them, his mouth twisted down into a frown that Clara wished she hadn't seen. It made her heart plummet.

"It has everything to do with this." He replied. "Carla?"

He turned to Carla, prompting her to explain. She looked lost for a moment and just as confused as Clara, but then she glanced towards the box and back to the Doctor, her eyes widening with understanding. She faltered, her breath skating past her lips weakly. She nervously fiddled with her hands, a habit Clara did all too often, and then reluctantly turned to Clara.

"The only way to hack into his mind would be to go through one of the robots. Someone would have to…well, for starters, they'd have to get a robot. And then they'd have to disable it, merge themself with it molecularly, hook Killer up to their brain waves, and…let it enter through their mind, through the connection the robots already have with the Great Intelligence. It's like a backdoor entrance."

Clara didn't understand the melancholy look on the Doctor's face, nor the stricken one on Carla's.

"So…the person who theoretically does this then extracts themselves and the Great Intelligence is done for. Or they stay half-robot forever?" She asked. None of it seemed fun, but the Doctor looked as if the world was ending, and Clara couldn't figure out why.

"No. The device is designed to destroy the cells linking the Great Intelligence to things outside of itself. So, paradoxically, the device will burn up every cell of the person who is aiding its path past the cloak."

Clara shook her head. "Just the robot parts, though, right? Not the human bits."

"I imagine it will look a bit like an electrocution." Carla explained. Her voice was deadpanned.

Clara looked from the woman, to the Doctor, back and forth, her heart falling until it couldn't fall any further.

"Well, we don't even know if this is really what's going on." She finally said. She could hear the sad denial in her own voice, but she didn't care. She began pacing because she felt like if she just stood there any longer she might cry, but she wasn't even sure why. "The robots might not attack, or maybe the TARDIS will come back in time and we can get the Doctor out of here, or maybe there's another way. Perhaps we could hack into the mind of the robot and use it. Why would we need a human?"

_Because Carla wouldn't be here if we didn't. _The voice that whispered that made Clara sick. She shook her head again and continued talking before the Doctor or Carla could.

"No, there's definitely something to be done. So let's go back, put on another pot of tea, and think of some other answers." She ordered.

She walked to the doorway. When she touched the doorknob and realized no one was following her, she turned around and glared.

"Well? Come on!" She demanded.

They shared a look and trailed after her. Clara took over the kitchen like it was hers, and she didn't even realize that she somehow knew where everything was until after they were all seated with fresh cups of tea. She looked up at the Doctor in confusion.

"Did I just remember where everything was?" She asked, just to make sure she hadn't completely lost her mind.

"It was pretty impressive." Carla said, but she looked a little freaked out too. "Does this mean you know my future, since technically you've already lived my life? Or…our life?"

There was a vulnerability in Carla's eyes (_her eyes_) that Clara had to glance away from.

"I don't remember anything about all those other lives. Just flashes sometimes, and nightmares, and a lot of déjà vu." She replied.

Carla nodded and glanced back down at her mug. When she spoke next, her voice was carefully level, like she'd rehearsed the sentence many times in her mind beforehand.

"I wish you did. I've forgotten things about my mother, things I never thought I would, like the way she smelled or the sound of her voice. It would have been nice to talk to someone who remembered. She was all I had."

When Clara took her hand, it did feel a bit like she was holding her own hand, but in a good way. A safe way. She understood what Carla felt so deeply that she was certain that she was feeling her emotions with her.

"I don't remember yours, but my mother died too"—_In fact_, Clara thought_, it's my fault that you're hurting right now, as your life is merely a jumbled echo of mine, and my mother died—_"and I remember how that feels. It feels like…realizing that you'll never have a home ever again."

Clara wasn't surprised with Carla began crying, because as far as Clara herself was concerned, the only people she cried in front of were herself and the Doctor as well. She rose and sat down in the seat beside the woman's and wrapped her arm around her shoulders (noting to herself that she really did feel a lot smaller than she actually was), and she noticed the Doctor hurrying to do the same. He sat on Carla's other side, his face stricken like it always was whenever he saw Clara upset, and his arm rested above Clara's as he wrapped it around the woman's shoulders as well.

"You've got Ella though, right? That's so wonderful. That's more than I had. For a while I had nothing." _Until the Doctor, that is. _

Clara knew herself, and so she knew that Carla wasn't only crying for her long-lost mother. She was crying because, somewhere inside of her, she'd already decided what she was going to do. She already knew she was going to die. And maybe she didn't want to, maybe she couldn't escape her fate even if she wanted to. Maybe Clara had trapped her by her reckless decision to scatter herself through time and space. But both girls knew, deep down, that if the moment came, they would both die for the Doctor in a heartbeat. The only difference was that Carla knew she was only an echo, born for the purpose of dying, and that had to be a hard realization to come to. Even though Clara had lived this already, had already felt this pain and hundreds more, she felt extremely guilty for what she knew was bound to happen. It felt less like suicide now that she'd met her and more like human sacrifice.

"Yeah, I've got Ella." Carla finally said. She smiled a little and wiped at her eyes. "Speaking of, she's only going to stay in her room for so long, so we should probably figure out what to tell her."

Both the Doctor and Clara were glad when her tears stopped.

"Why, I'm your identical twin, of course. Aunt Clara." Clara explained with a grin. Carla smiled weakly back.

"Of course, my long lost sister."

Clara did a sarcastic half-bow from her seat. "Please, no photographs."

It turned out that Ella didn't venture out until dinner time. She was thrilled to suddenly find an aunt she never knew she had and clung to Clara the entire dinner, rambling on about some complicated toy for a while. Clara and the Doctor, for their part, were mostly spellbound by the meal. They forced themselves to eat slowly, for fear of throwing up by overindulging themselves too quickly, but it was extremely difficult. That night, Carla showed them to the guest room, and Clara was so overwhelmed with relief at the sight of an actual _bed_ and an actual _bathroom_ that she promptly grabbed Carla by the waist and kissed her briefly, knowing she wouldn't have a problem with it (because she was, in fact, herself). Carla smiled warmly at her when she pulled back, understanding that the gesture contained all the gratitude Clara couldn't put into words.

"I'm my own savior this time, look at that." She exclaimed giddily, looking back at the bed. It was a featherbed with mosquito netting, and maybe it wasn't exactly as grandeur as she had originally thought up, but it was almost exactly the bed the Doctor had promised she'd have on their "island holiday". She was ecstatic. She grabbed the Doctor's hand and bounced up on and down on the balls of her feet.

"Doctor, look at that! It's a bed with a canopy!" She said. "And we can bathe in freshwater! And drink full glasses of water whenever we want!"

Carla stepped out to get them some linens and pajamas. The Doctor just stared at her, almost like his brain had frozen like a computer with not enough memory.

"Clara?" He finally asked slowly. By this point, Clara had shrugged her shoulders and raced over to the bed and was currently lying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling with a huge smile. She propped herself up on her elbows and peered at him.

"Hmm?" She asked.

"Did you…did you just kiss yourself?" He asked incredulously.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, so what? You've never kissed yourself before?"

His face took on the same twisted look of disgust that he wore that time she accidentally fed him a pear.

"Absolutely not! Besides, I regenerate. It's different. We've already had this conversation."

Clara laid back down and rolled her eyes.

"Still a different version of the same person." She replied. She closed her eyes and sighed contently. Lying on a mattress had never felt so good and she was sure it never would again. A few moments later, the bed shifted as the Doctor plopped down beside her. He reached for her, grasping her waist gently, and pulled her against him. She hugged him close, her heart swelling in the way it only ever did when she was with him. _All right, _she thought, a little begrudgingly, _maybe the mattress feels a little bit better now. _

"I think it's wonderful that you can care about yourself." He told her. His breath was warm against her scalp as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I think it's great that you can show concern for yourself, that you can comfort yourself, that you can thank yourself."

She leaned back a little, peering up at his face.

"Do you care about yourself, Doctor?" She wondered. There was always a spot reserved in her heart that she used solely for the purpose of worrying about the Doctor. Conversations like this made that place ache.

He smiled fleetingly. "If I didn't, I never would have spent so long trying to find you."

She pressed her face back against him so she could hide her smile.

"Cheesy." She accused. "You just want to be invited to my and Carla's party on Friday night."

She could hear the smile in his voice when he replied.

"Oh my stars, you've caught me." He teased.

Clara laughed into his shirt, because just as she'd accidentally picked up on some of his gestures and habits, it seemed her own catchphrase was rubbing off on him. She liked the idea of that.

She had forgotten that Carla was returning, but somehow she knew the moment she walked into the room, even if the woman had made a silent entry. She shifted back from the Doctor and sat up, smiling at her. Carla carried over a stack of neatly folded towels and clothing. She set it at the edge of the bed.

"We should be safe tonight; the robots haven't located this corner of the island yet." She told them.

Clara smiled, relieved. "Good, because I can't say I'd be very compassionate towards those robots if they cost me a night sleeping in a bed."

Carla was about to agree when her daughter made a sudden appearance in the doorway.

"Are Aunt Clara and Uncle Doctor going home tomorrow?" She asked.

Clara and Carla had the same response perched on their lips. Carla looked at Clara to indicate that she could go ahead and say it.

"Why? Do you want me to?" Clara asked her.

Ella shook her head firmly. "No way! I haven't scanned your brain yet!"

The Doctor found that comment entirely delightful. He laughed loudly and clapped his hands, only to suddenly fall silent under the stern look of the child.

"I have to scan yours too, Uncle Doctor." She told him.

Clara hadn't realized that the little girl was calling him that until right then. She couldn't remember anyone introducing him as that.

"They aren't going anywhere tomorrow, Ella. Go on to bed." Carla told her. Ella grimaced, but trudged off down the hallway anyway.

"I'm not her uncle." The Doctor pointed out, once she was a little ways down the hall.

Carla rolled her eyes.

"Clara's not her aunt either." She replied. "We're just telling her that. We can't very well say that Clara's her…sort-of mother and you're her stepfather."

It took both Clara and the Doctor a moment to understand what Carla was implying.

"Stepfather?" the Doctor practically squeaked. "Clara's not my wife!"

Clara laughed and crossed her arms. "The Doctor's not my husband!"

"We're not married!" They said in unison.

Carla looked genuinely surprised.

"Oh. Sorry. I just…I don't know." She waited until the Doctor had glanced sheepishly at the bed to give Clara a pointed look. Clara supposed they had a lot of shared feelings for the Doctor that she would have to explain at some point. She was so used to feeling overwhelming love for the Doctor that she didn't realize that, to others, it might not seem commonplace. It might seem like more than it was, or ever could be. "Um…would you two like separate rooms, then?"

"No." They both replied easily, without much thought. And then they were left to consider just how odd that probably was. They made a point of avoiding each other's eyes.

Clara understood the brief smile on Carla's face completely, although she couldn't say she was glad to see it.

"Right, well, I'll be popping off to bed then. Sleep tight."

She was about to leave the room when she stopped suddenly. She walked over to the desk on the far wall and pulled something from it that Clara and the Doctor couldn't see. On her way back out, she stopped and stuck a small nightlight into an outlet on the wall near the door. Clara smiled softly at her. It was nice, she decided, to stay with someone who literally knew you like you knew yourself. Who knew that, as much as you might try to deny it, the dark was terrifying because it made you feel lost.

"Goodnight."

Once the door was shut, a silence fell over the Doctor and Clara. She retreated to the adjoining bathroom and soaked in the bath for a long time, and it felt so lovely to be clean when she finished that she almost cried. She pulled on the pajamas that Carla had left for her (which were, of course, the perfect size) and then curled up on the bed while the Doctor took his turn in the bathroom.

She was half asleep when she heard the bathroom door open. The smell of the soap drifted out into the room and she burrowed down further into the sheets, trying to place the memory that soap triggered. It was a nice one, but that was all she could gather.

The Doctor obviously thought she was asleep. He sat down very slowly and carefully on the bed, attempting not to jostle her, and then slid underneath the covers. She felt his body curl around hers, his knees tucking behind hers and his arm draping over her waist, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. Unfortunately for her, somehow that tipped the Doctor off to her mental alertness.

"Clara," he hummed, "I know you're awake."

She threaded her fingers through his and allowed her smile to show.

"Clever boy."

She felt the curve of his smile against the back of her neck. It made her shiver a little, unfortunately just enough for him to notice.

"Are you cold?" He asked.

She could only imagine the looks she and Carla could have shared at that question.

"No." She reassured him.

A few moments passed, and she thought he was going to sleep, but then he spoke again.

"Why would she think that we were married?" He asked. His voice was equally careful and curious in a way only the Doctor could manage.

"Look at the way you're holding me and then ask that question again." Clara replied. She was hoping that comment would throw him off. She really didn't want to have to admit to him that not only was she in love with him, but it was a strong enough love that her echo felt it enough to automatically assume they were married.

"Well she didn't see me holding you like this, did she?" He rebutted. When she didn't reply after a few moments, he continued, this time thinking out loud. "She's you. Shouldn't she know how you feel better than anyone?"

Clara began cursing quite colorfully in her mind. She knew if he thought about that last question for more than a few seconds, he'd realize that he'd already answered his question himself, and that was the last thing she wanted. She knew one day they'd have to acknowledge the way they felt about each other, but not today. To acknowledge it would be to take a risk, and losing or hurting the Doctor was never a risk Clara wanted to take.

She made a weak attempt to distract him.

"This bed is so comfortable. Don't you think? It's probably the most comfortable I've ever been in." She exclaimed.

"Clara…" he said, his voice low, like a warning.

_Oh no. _

"Some beds are too hard and some are too soft, but this is just right." She continued.

"Clara." He repeated, sternly.

She fell silent. "Are we roleplaying each other now? Normally you're doing the rambling bit and I'm doing the stern, listen-to-me-for-a-moment bit."

He slid back a little and then pulled on her shoulder gently, a silent plea for her to face him. She did so with the feeling that she was walking to the guillotine. They laid on their sides, facing each other, and Clara knew he knew.

"Okay, I might have done something I wasn't supposed to." She finally admitted. "Like...falling in love. Maybe."

He touched her hair lightly, his eyes on hers.

"You know I'm only worried because I don't want you to get hurt. It isn't because I don't feel the same way. It's because I can never give you a life like you'd deserve."

She smiled at him.

"I know." She reassured him. "That's why I never said anything. It didn't need saying."

He smiled back at her, a little sadly.

"You really are impossible, Clara." He told her fondly.

She touched his ridiculous chin, her eyes dropping from his to his lips.

"Because I don't need any romantic confessions? I know you, Doctor. I know when you're saying you love me. You don't do it with words. You don't need to." She muttered.

He pulled her in for a sudden hug. It was such a tight hug that she almost found it hard to breathe, but the discomfort was almost reassuring.

"Oh, my Clara." He murmured into her hair, his voice choked with emotion, and Clara could only smile because she understood exactly what he meant.

"You know how I feel about you, Doctor, and I feel it with no expectations of getting anything you can't give me. I just want to be with you, that's all. That's enough for me." She promised him.

He let go of her and pulled back to stare at her.

"What if it isn't enough for me?" He asked her. She wasn't sure he could surprise her any longer, but she was wrong. She lifted her eyebrows at him and smiled, her next words making her heart pick up a little bit more.

"Then you know where my lips are." She informed him, matter-of-factly. "All you have to do is say it."

His hand settled between her shoulder blades, his fingers tracing the back of her neck lightly. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and right up until the very moment he leaned forward, she honestly didn't think he would do it. When he did, she felt like she was sinking even further into the soft sheets. His lips tasted familiar and soft, like home. When he pulled back and looked at her, a little nervously, she could only smile.

"You say the most beautiful things, Doctor." She murmured.

His returning smile was etched into her mind the rest of the night, even as they fell asleep.

* * *

The robots didn't attack the next day, or the next day, or the next. Soon a week passed, and there were still no new developments.

Clara and the Doctor stayed with Carla and her daughter. An improved diet and shelter considerably improved their general wellbeing, and by the end of the first week, they were both looking much healthier. They were having a surprisingly pleasant time, something that Clara hadn't thought would ever happen when they first ended up stranded. The tea was good, the company was good, and for the time being, everyone was safe. Not to mention the added comfort of having yourself as company. The longer Clara spent with Carla, the closer they became. The Doctor found the two of them together both aggravating and hilarious. Sometimes Clara thought he really did feel a bit left out, because when Clara and Carla got into conversations, it really was somewhat like they were just talking out loud to themselves. Sometimes, when he spoke up during one of their conversations, it even felt like some random person had just answered a question she'd asked herself in her mind.

The Doctor and Clara on their own, however, were worlds away from feeling any sort of distance. Not much had changed, but they held each other a little closer each night, and kissed each other for just a little longer. It was such a lovely time in Clara's life that she forgot all about missing home. She found herself thinking that, if they were stuck here forever, perhaps that'd be okay. But the Doctor was growing restless. He didn't do well in one place, especially not being trapped, and the TARDIS couldn't come back until they did something about the cloaking over the island. But that was something Clara hadn't thought about since the original conversation and something that she hadn't heard Carla or the Doctor bring up again (at least not in front of her).

It was eight days into their stay before Clara and Carla got any extended time alone together. The Doctor got dragged away by Ella, who insisted on "scanning" his brain once and for all (she seemed to know, somehow, that he wasn't like everyone else), leaving the two girls time to chat. It was then that they were able to breach topics that they'd either been unwilling or unable to breach before.

"Ella's father," Clara brought up carefully. "Where is he?"

Carla shrugged, much to Clara's surprise.

"I've been asking myself that same question for almost seven years now. Went to grab a pizza and never came back. You'll let me know if you ever figure it out, won't you?"

Clara grimaced. "Blimey."

"You're telling me." Carla said. She smiled, though. "Always was a funny bloke. I can't say I was surprised."

A silence set in between them as they both attempted to dance around the topic on each other's minds. In the end, Carla caved.

"They're going to find us very soon now, you know." She informed her. "They know he's here."

Clara felt the backs of her eyes burn. She looked away from Carla.

"I figured." She muttered.

Carla didn't have to ask for her hand. Clara lifted it from her lap and rested it on the top of the table right before she reached for it. Carla gripped her hand tightly, her thumb stroking over the back, and drew her eyes back to hers.

"I know you worry that you've forced me into this."

Clara shrugged, a little helplessly. "Haven't I? It's strange, because I know it's me I was hurting, but at the same time…it's not really, is it? I didn't see that before I met you. I didn't realize that you have had experiences unique to ones I've had. You're me, but you're not. You're your own person. You have your own memories. And you're just supposed to leave all of that behind and sacrifice yourself because of something I did. Something we did."

Arguing with yourself was never productive, but it was therapeutic. Every word Carla said Clara had already thought to herself, but it was nice to hear it out loud.

"But I wouldn't even exist if you hadn't. I exist to save him. I know that, and I know you can't remember enough about that feeling to understand it right now, but it's all-consuming. I have to save him because, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I can always remember the way it felt when I thought I was going to lose him. The way you felt when you thought you were going to lose him. I have to save the Doctor. It's all I can think."

Clara couldn't understand. Carla was right about that.

"But you have a daughter. It's all so messy. All those people who were relying on my echoes…what about them?" She demanded.

"You mean the daughter I never would have had if you hadn't done what you did, because I wouldn't exist?" Carla asked.

Clara gripped her head between her hands. Her head was beginning to ache again. "Fair enough. But what does she do without a mother? We both know how much it hurts to lose one."

Clara could feel Carla's resolve slipping, even if only for a moment. If there was anything strong enough to break one's purpose, it was the love a mother had for her child.

"The other scientists here will take care of her. She's grown up with them all and loves them like family." Carla replied.

Clara shook her head. "But they won't be her mother."

Carla gave her an almost angry look. "I know what you're getting at, Clara. Go ahead and say it, just so we can both hear how ridiculous it sounds."

Clara glared, but conceded.

"What if I did it instead?" She asked, a little defensively.

Carla laughed. "What if you died again here in the same exact way?" She demanded. "You've already done this as me. You know you have. You can't die to save the echo of yourself that you created for the purpose of dying."

"Why not?" Clara challenged.

"Because it's ridiculous." Carla exclaimed. "Because I'm the one who was born for it."

"You're me." Clara argued. "I could easily take your place."

Unfortunately for them both, they realized a little too late that their tempers were two wires that never should have touched.

"No, you couldn't!" Carla yelled. "You're the original, I'm the copy! Everything I am is just a randomized reconfiguration of you—everything! My life, my choices, my likes, even my name! Coming to terms with that isn't so easy, you know. Because deep down I _am_ you. All I want is to run away with that man and see the stars again, but I can't, because I need to be here. I need to die here, for him. For you, for myself."

"Why does it matter who dies as long as he's saved? You could go on. He was going to take an echo of me with him to travel before." She pointed out. She was desperate for Carla to listen, to understand. She couldn't bear the thought that she was putting that little girl through the same pain she'd had to endure when she was younger.

"What happened to keep him from doing that?" Carla demanded.

Clara weakened, just for a moment. "She died." She admitted.

"Exactly. Like she was meant to do." She said, a little harshly.

"Carla, please." Clara finally said. She could feel tears gathering in the corners of her eyes and she angrily blinked them away. "I don't have someone who is relying on me, who needs me, whose world would fall apart if I were to die."

Carla looked at her like she was blind.

"Yes you do, Clara. Yes you do." She told her resolutely.

It took Clara a moment to realize what she meant. She tried her hardest to deny it.

"He'd be okay. He likes you." She whispered. Just the idea that maybe that was true made her heart creak in ways she didn't want to think about.

"Only because he loves you."

Clara thought about the way he spoke to her at night, through soft kisses and gentle smiles, and about the way he shook one of those first nights after they were stranded, when she'd mentioned the possibility of her dying here and leaving him all alone. She realized with a jolt that she had been right all alone. She was going to die here; it just wasn't determined yet which version of her.

"I don't want to feel guilty anymore." Clara finally whispered. "I wish we'd never come here. I wish I never would have realized the implications of what I did."

"No." Carla told her, her eyes hard. "There are no implications. You did what you did to save him, and everything else has been worth it. Do you not hear me saying that I want to save him? It's my choice. I love him, too. I was created out of an act of love and I'll go out that same way. You can't stop it. Stop trying."

She knew it was a losing battle. They both knew she'd known it all along. But she had to try.

"I'll be there for you." Clara promised. It was the least she could do.

Carla smiled. "I know you will. In the end, the one you can count on most is yourself."

Clara supposed that was the truest thing of all.

Later, when she wandered into her and the Doctor's bedroom, he looked up from the notebook he was writing in. He took one look at her and shook his head.

"Have you been fighting with yourself again?" He demanded. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "I told you it was pointless."

"Not as pointless as you still trying to figure out another way for this disaster to pan out." She shot back.

He winced. "Wow, the argument went that badly? Where's your optimism?"

Abruptly, Clara felt that she might actually cry. Not just tearing up; actual sobs. The Doctor's face twisted into severe concern when he realized that too.

"Back in the TARDIS," she choked out, and then she was crying. He stood up and hurried over to her, enveloping her in his arms and guiding her head to his shoulder.

"Clara…" he breathed, a little shocked. "What is it?"

"I miss your stupid snogbox. I miss the way she hums when you whisper to her. I miss the way she clangs when I burn soufflés and smoke up her kitchen. I miss her blue doors and her vvorping." Clara gasped. "Mostly I miss not really understanding my sacrifice."

This trip had been to help her recover from Trenzalore. She didn't feel like she was recovering. She felt like she was deteriorating.

"I miss her too," he admitted, his voice small like a sad young man's and not an ancient alien's. "I know this is all odd and scary, but you have to remember that you've already done this. You might not remember it, but it's already happened. Those memories are buried somewhere inside of you. Everything's going to be okay. You'll be okay."

She wasn't entirely sure about that.

* * *

It was dawn the next morning when she heard it.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. She was always one to get things done.

She had no idea how Carla had gotten one robot free from the others. They'd begun marching towards them late that night. The Doctor had stayed up all night, desperately searching all Carla's research for a way to destroy them without doing what Carla fully intended on doing. But by the time they were close enough to hear their marching, Carla had slipped out and the Doctor was out of hope.

They heard the sound of drills coming from the room behind the door, and that was what tipped them off. Clara didn't even think about it. The moment the Doctor woke up and realized what that sound was, she was climbing right on top of him, her hands pressed firmly onto his shoulders. She was somehow part of Carla's plan without ever having even said a word to her about it.

"Clara, get off me." He commanded, his voice dark.

But Clara couldn't, because she knew what he would do if she did.

"You can't take her place, Doctor. If she wouldn't let me, she's sure as hell not going to let you." She told him.

"We both know I'm stronger than you. Don't make me shove you off." He threatened.

Clara shook her head. "You wouldn't risk hurting me."

He glared at her desperately. "Please don't put me into a position where I'd even have to consider it. Please."

Clara only pressed down harder, her expression set.

"I'm not going to let you die for me!" He argued.

"I've died for you thousands of times! In your past and your future! I thought you had accepted that?" She demanded.

He shook his head, his expression tortured. "I thought so too. But it's different to meet another version of you. It's different to see you two together, because it makes me realize that she really is a part of you. And I can't stand the idea of any part of you dying for me."

"You never would have met me had I not died for you." She hissed back, and then she realized that she was repeating Carla's arguments to her, without even realizing it. The realization that it was the same hit her so strongly that she could only stare at the Doctor with a bemused expression for a few moments. Here she was, insisting that the Doctor let her die for him, because it was what she was meant to do. He wasn't supposed to feel guilty for it, because it was her choice, because she loved him. Just like that, she understood Carla completely.

Holding her paralleled understanding close, she gave the Doctor a bit of knowledge that Carla had imparted to her.

"You can't die, Doctor. I couldn't do it without you. Not any of it." She admitted. Her voice was weaker than she wanted, but somehow her weakness got through to him more than her strength. He stared at her with steadily softening eyes.

"How many times am I going to have to lose you, Clara?" He wondered, his voice torn and ragged.

She slowly sat up straight, lifting her hands from his shoulders. She stayed sitting on him though, for fear a dark voice in his head would make him dart from the room before she could blink.

"A thousand times. But that's the beauty of us, isn't it? You can't ever lose me completely if I keep cropping up. There's no permanent goodbye when you can't stop saying it."

Hearing her own screams drifting down the hallway was jarring to say the least. She realized suddenly that when she had told Carla that she'd "be there for her", she hadn't meant when she died. She'd meant she'd be there for her in this way, by ensuring the Doctor's safety once more. And Carla had known she would. Even in the end, they were working together as a whole to achieve what they'd both given so much up to do.

The Doctor couldn't stand the screams. He tried to jump up, but Clara pressed him back into the mattress again.

"It was my choice! I knew what I was doing." She told him.

"Don't I get a choice?" He demanded. His face was pained and furious, his eyes flashing, but after only a few moments of eye contact his face began to smooth out.

"You already made it. You kissed me, remember?" She reminded him.

Clara was surprised when the first wave of pain hit her. She gasped and fell off the Doctor onto the mattress, her muscles screaming like they were being pulled so tight they were near snapping.

"Clara!" The Doctor exclaimed. She felt his hands stroking her face, but she couldn't feel much else beyond the pain. She wasn't sure if she was having a vivid flashback to Carla's death, or if somehow she could feel what she was feeling, but it was intensely painful.

And then she heard a familiar sound. It was insistent and frantic, but also breathlessly relieved, like the sound of a mother that had been screaming for her lost son when she finally saw him in a crowd of people, and never had anything sounded more beautiful. The Doctor, in his overtly concerned state, didn't even notice it. Clara did though, because it was returning her optimism to her.

It materialized only a couple of inches from the bed. Clara jumped up, her pain pandering off slowly, pushed the door in (earning a pleased hum from the machine), and grabbed the Doctor's hand.

"_This_ is where we're meant to be." She told him.

He was so relieved to see that she was no longer in pain that he didn't argue. He held her close and pressed kiss after kiss to her face.

"I thought you were going to die too." He whispered.

It took a while until he was okay enough to let go of her. She didn't mind the holding, because frankly, she needed it too. She knew they both would need some time to process what they'd been through, but she was eager to get off the island. They just had one more thing to do.

* * *

Ella was still asleep when Clara picked her up from her bed. She carried her carefully to the TARDIS, mindful not to jostle her awake. When the snowbox dematerialized, though, she began to stir. Still half asleep, and peering up at Clara through sleepy eyes, she made an easy mistake.

"Mama?" She asked.

Clara had never gotten a goodbye from her own mother. She'd left for work one morning and never came back. Clara didn't want another little girl to ever have to live with that, so she leaned down and kissed her forehead gently.

"Yeah, Ella. It's me." She told her. "I have to tell you something really important. Will you promise to listen?"

Ella nodded drowsily, her eyes drifting shut once more.

"I have to go away for a while. It's just part of life." Clara began. She had to stop to catch her breath a second later, because her throat was closing up from her oncoming tears. She fought against them. "I love you so much. You were the best part of my life. You are an amazing little girl, and you're going to be an amazing woman. You can do anything you want to do. I believe in you so much. Sometimes it might feel like you're lost, but you never really are, because I will always come and find you, every single time. I love you, Ella."

Clara waited inside the TARDIS and cried while the Doctor carried the little girl to the other scientists in the homes near the one that had been Carla and Ella's. She knew Ella would be safe there and that they'd all go home now that the threat was gone.

It took her a few days to realize what had all been given to her. She'd gotten a push from herself to tell the Doctor how she really felt, she'd gotten to fully understand her own sacrifice and then realize that, despite the added pain of it, she would have chosen to do the same again, and she'd gotten to give her echo's daughter the words that she'd always wished her mother would have said.

She padded down the hall that night and slipped into the Doctor's room. She'd been roaming the TARDIS at night thinking for the past few days, but she was ready to move on now. She crawled underneath his covers and held his hand.

"Thank you for the holiday, Doctor."

He smiled sleepily, his eyes still shut.

"Thank you for you." He said, and then he said three more words when he pressed his lips to hers.

All in all, they were experts at surviving.


End file.
